Tag: Roger Godsiff

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a mechanism to ring-fence mental health funding.

Nicola Blackwood

Funding decisions legitimately rest with clinical commissioning groups as the appropriate accountable organisations to their local populations.

Nevertheless, 2016-17 NHS England planning guidance states that funding allocations may be retracted, if there is evidence that additional mental health allocations are not being used for the purpose for which they were intended.

The Mandate to NHS England in 2016-17 sets a clear objective that, in order “to close the health gap for people of all ages, we want to see a system-wide transformation in children and young people’s mental health”.

Clinical commissioning groups are required to increase their spending on mental health each year at least in line with the growth in their overall funding allocations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-11-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of Bermuda’s progress in introducing a public register of beneficial ownership since June 2013.

James Duddridge

We have asked the Bermudian authorities to meet the following criteria: a) UK law enforcement and tax authorities must be able to access company beneficial ownership information without restriction, subject to relevant safeguards; b) These competent authorities should be able to quickly identify all companies that a particular beneficial owner has a stake in without needing to submit multiple and repeated requests; and c) Companies or their beneficial owners must not be alerted to the fact that an investigation is underway. We are continuing our dialogue with the Bermudan authorities on this and have offered any technical support that might be required as they develop their proposals My Rt Hon Friend, the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Philip Hammond MP), Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, met with Premier Dunkley on 26 August in London.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of her Department’s miscalculation of the amount of funding available for West Midlands Police on the adequacy of the provision of policing in Birmingham; and what steps she is taking to ensure effective policing in that city.

Mike Penning

The allocations provided to forces were indicative and intended to inform the consultation process. No funding to West Midlands Police or any other force was affected by this error.

The Government is now minded to delay the implementation of new arrangements. Funding allocations for 2016/17 will be determined using existing arrangements and will be set out in the Provisional Police Grant Report in December. It is a matter for Police and Crime Commissioners, working with Chief Officers to determine how to best manage their available resources.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how UK citizens living in the UK can apply for a visa for relatives living in Yemen.

James Brokenshire

UK citizens can submit visa applications on behalf of relatives living overseas via the following website – www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/home/welcome.

The applicant would then need to travel to their nearest Visa Application Centre (VAC) to verify the information provided and progress their application to the next stage.

There are no VACs in Yemen; guidance for applying for a UK visa from Yemen can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/yemen-apply-for-a-uk-visa/apply-for-a-uk-visa-in-yemen

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for what reason the UK no longer has a strategy on opposing the death penalty; and whether the Government plans to publish a new strategy.

Mr David Lidington

This Government is continuing its work to oppose the death penalty as part of its broader efforts to promote human rights. Our commitment to the Rules Based International Order underpins this work, including through bilateral and multilateral support to global efforts to abolish the death penalty. We do not intend to publish a new strategy specific to the death penalty; but we will be publishing a strategy for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)’s Human Rights and Democracy Programme Fund shortly, which will show how work to abolish the death penalty is important under all three of the strategy’s new themes. The FCO’s death penalty-related work will also be covered in future instalments of the FCO’s Annual Human Rights Report.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether there is any requirement for NHS bodies which outsource health services to ensure that companies with which they contract are fully insured.

George Freeman

Clinical commissioning groups and NHS England, when commissioning foundation trusts, NHS trusts and others to deliver non-primary care clinical services, must do so using the NHS Standard Contract published each year by NHS England.

The NHS Standard Contract requires the provider of clinical services to “put in place and maintain appropriate indemnity arrangements in respect of:

– employers’ liability;

– clinical negligence;

– public liability; and

– professional negligence.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-02-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what funding she plans to allocate to Birmingham City Council for implementation of a Clean Air Zone in Birmingham; and how much funding she plans to allocate to that Council under the air quality grant programme.

Rory Stewart

The air quality plan for nitrogen dioxide we published on 17 December last year confirms that we will be providing funding to help five Local Authorities in England outside London to implement clean air zones and to support the implementation of additional measures where necessary. We will be discussing the details of this with the Local Authorities concerned, including Birmingham City Council.

Birmingham City Council has not received any funding for 2015-16 under our air quality grant programme. No decisions have been made about air quality grant awards for 2016-17 and beyond.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to implement the recommendations of the Mental Health Taskforce’s report, The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, published in February 2016.

Alistair Burt

The Government welcomes and accepts the recommendations from the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. The Taskforce estimates that the priority recommendations for the National Health Service set out in their report will cost an additional £1 billion annually by the year 2020/21: by the end of this Parliament we will make the Taskforce’s recommendations a reality.

Investment in mental health rose to its highest ever level, an estimated £11.7 billion, in 2014/15. The £1 billion of additional investment announced by the Prime Minister last month will be in place by 2020/21 and builds on the £280 million per year of new funding for children and young people’s mental health announced last year. This funding will make an important contribution to plugging the gap and fulfilling the Taskforce’s recommendations, helping one million additional children, young people and adults to access high quality care by 2020/21.

How new investment for NHS priority recommendations is identified and implemented will be for NHS England to determine as part of the planning and allocations process. We anticipate that the majority of commitments outlined in this report will be delivered through clinical commissioning groups.

Further guidance will be issued shortly as part of the new Sustainability and Transformation Planning process: this will set expectations for how funding will be invested to deliver on the Taskforce recommendations for the NHS and how areas will be supported to deliver them over the following four years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-02-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the minimum number of hours off-duty is that his Department uses to define a day off for a junior doctor.

Ben Gummer

Neither the current contract nor the new contract define a day off. Both define a minimum rest period between shifts of 11 hours and a minimum break between defined periods of prolonged work of 48 hours. Further minimum rest periods, as set out in the existing Working Time Regulations, will also apply. The new contract will reduce the number of consecutive night shifts after which a 48 hour break must be taken from seven to four, the number of consecutive long day shifts from seven to five, the number of consecutive late evening shifts from 12 to four and the number of consecutive shorter shifts from 12 to eight. The improvements are part of the around 90% of the new contract that was agreed with the British Medical Association and that make the new contract much safer than the current one.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-03-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies on corporate taxation of the OECD’s report, Countering harmful tax practices more effectively, taking into account transparency and substance, published in September 2014.

Mr David Gauke

The OECD report published in September 2014 formed the basis of international discussions in the OECD Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, which lead to the publishing of the 2015 FHTP Report, chapter 4 of which creates a new international framework governing preferential intellectual property (“IP”) regimes, such as the UK Patent Box.

This international framework makes the lower tax rates of preferential IP regimes dependent on, and proportional to, the research and development expenditure incurred by the claimant taxpayer in developing their IP. The UK Patent Box will be amended in line with this international framework, with the new rules coming into force on 1 July 2016.

The Report also made provision for greater information exchange between tax authorities of rulings issued to individual businesses. HM Revenue and Customs is currently implementing these rules and has already begun to exchange information with other tax authorities.